Occlusion culling for object-order volume rendering

ABSTRACT

Computerized systems and methods provide occlusion culling for efficiently rendering a three dimensional image. The systems and methods calculate a set of occluder shields in a voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset. Next, the occluder shields are applied to the dataset to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image. Finally, the voxel data set can be rendered, excluding regions that do not contribute to the final image.

RELATED FILES

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/293,275, filed May 23, 2001, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

The present invention relates generally to computerized volume rendering, and more particularly to occlusion culling for volume rendering.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE/PERMISSION

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawings hereto: Copyright© 2001, 2002 Vital Images, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

BACKGROUND

Because of the increasingly fast processing power of modem-day computers, users have turned to computers to assist them in the examination and analysis of images of real-world data. For example, within the medical community, radiologists and other professionals who once examined x-rays hung on a light screen now use computers to examine images obtained via ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), ultrasonography, positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), magnetic source imaging, and other imaging techniques. Countless other imaging techniques will no doubt arise as medical imaging technology evolves.

Each of the above-identified imaging procedures generates volume images, although each relies on a different technology to do so. Thus, CT requires an x-ray source to rapidly rotate around a patient to obtain up to hundreds of electronically stored pictures of the patient. Conversely, for example, MR requires that radio-frequency waves be emitted to cause hydrogen atoms in the body's water to move and release energy, which is then detected and translated into an image. Because each of these techniques penetrates the body of a patient to obtain data, and because the body is three-dimensional, this data represents a three-dimensional image, or volume. In particular, CT and MR both provide three-dimensional “slices” of the body, which can later be electronically reassembled.

Computer graphics images, such as medical images, have typically been modeled through the use of techniques such as surface rendering and other geometric-based techniques. Because of known deficiencies of such techniques, volume-rendering techniques have been developed as a more accurate way to render images based on real-world data. Volume-rendering takes a conceptually intuitive approach to rendering, by assuming that three-dimensional objects are composed of basic volumetric building blocks.

These volumetric building blocks are commonly referred to as voxels. Whereas, by contrast, the well known pixel is a picture element—i.e., a tiny two-dimensional sample of a digital image have a particular location in the plane of a picture defined by two coordinates—a voxel is a sample that exists within a three-dimensional grid, positioned at coordinates x, y, and z. The voxel has a “voxel value,” as that value is obtained from real-world scientific or medical instruments. The voxel value may be measured in any of a number of different units, such as Hounsfield units, which are well known to those of ordinary skill within the art.

Furthermore, for a given voxel value, a transparency value, to indicate its opacity, as well as a color value, to indicate its color, may also be assigned (for example, in a particular tabling including such mappings). Such transparency and color values may be considered attribute values, in that they control various attributes (transparency, color, etc.) of the set of voxel data that makes up an image.

Using volume-rendering, any three-dimensional volume can be simply divided into a set of three-dimensional samples, or voxels. Thus, a volume containing an object of interest is dividable into small cubes, each of which contain some piece of the original object. This continuous volume representation is transformable into discrete elements by assigning to each cube a voxel value that characterizes some quality of the object as contained in that cube.

The object is thus summarized by a set of point samples, such that each voxel is associated with a single digitized point in the data set. As compared to mapping boundaries in the case of geometric-based surface-rendering, reconstructing a volume using volume-rendering requires much less effort and is more intuitively and conceptually clear. The original object is reconstructed by the stacking of voxels together in order, so that they accurately represent the original volume.

Although more simple on a conceptual level, and more accurate in providing an image of the data, volume-rendering is nevertheless still quite complex. In one method of voxel rendering, called image ordering or ray casting, the volume is positioned behind the picture plane, and a ray is projected perpendicularly from each pixel in the picture plane through the volume behind the pixel. As each ray penetrates the volume, it accumulates the properties of the voxels it passes through and adds them to the corresponding pixel. The properties accumulate more quickly or more slowly depending on the transparency of the voxels.

In another method, called object-order volume rendering, the voxel values are also combined to produce image pixels to display on a computer screen. Whereas image-order algorithms start from the image pixels and shoot rays into the volume, object-order algorithms generally start from the volume data and project that data onto the image plane.

A widely used object-order algorithm relies on dedicated graphics hardware to do the projection of the voxels in a parallel fashion. In one method, the volume data is copied into a 3D texture image. Then, slices perpendicular to the viewer are drawn; on each slice, the volumetric data is resampled. By drawing the slices in a back-to-front fashion and combining the results by a well-known technique called compositing, the final image will be generated. The image rendered in this method as well depends on the transparency of the voxels.

Thus while volume rendering provides significant visualization advantages, several problems remain. Although the speed of modern CPUs and graphics hardware is steadily increasing, the size of medical datasets is also rapidly growing. Modern multi-slice Computed Tomography (CT) scanners can generate datasets that contain more than a thousand slices; facilitating interactive manipulation and 3D visualization of these large datasets still poses tremendous challenges. Furthermore, in those systems employing texture mapping, with larger datasets the overhead associated with swapping data in and out and the limited-size texture memory severely degrades performance. As a result, there is a need in the art for the present invention.

SUMMARY

The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.

One aspect of the embodiments of the invention is a method for rendering a three dimensional image. The method calculates a set of occluder shields in a voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset. Next, the occluder shields are applied to the dataset to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image. Finally, the voxel data set can be rendered, excluding regions that do not contribute to the final image.

The present invention describes systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an operating environment in which different embodiments of the invention can be practiced;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing rendering a voxel dataset using occlusion culling according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart further illustrating a method for performing occlusion culling on a voxel dataset according to an embodiment of the invention; and

FIGS. 4A and 4B are diagrams illustrating a rendered voxel dataset and a graphical display of the occluders in the dataset as determined by embodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific exemplary embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the ways used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussions, terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.

In the Figures, the same reference number is used throughout to refer to an identical component which appears in multiple Figures. Signals and connections may be referred to by the same reference number or label, and the actual meaning will be clear from its use in the context of the description.

The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.

Some embodiments of the invention described below make use of concept referred to as effective transparency, which will now be described. As noted above, with volume rendering, each voxel is assigned a color and an opacity (conversely, a transparency); output images are created by performing volumetric compositing (blending). This can be done in either back-to-front or front-to-back fashion; with ray casting, front-to-back ray casting is most popular because it allows for a speedup technique called adaptive (or early) ray termination. Once a ray strikes an opaque object or has progressed a sufficient distance through a semitransparent object, the opacity accumulates to a level that the color of the ray stabilizes.

As an example, consider the opacity β_(P) of a voxel at position P_(x,y,z) of the volume; its transparency is defined by α_(P)=−β_(P). When α_(P) is zero, the voxel is completely opaque. Now consider the total transparency encountered by the three axis-aligned trajectories through the point P and its six-connected neighborhood: α_(P,x1)=α_(x−1,y,z)α_(x,y,z,)α_(x+1,y,z) α_(P,y1)=α_(x,y−1,z)α_(x,y,z)α_(x,y+1,z) α_(P,z1)=α_(x,y,z−1)α_(x,y,z)α_(x,y,z+1) The maximum transparency encountered along any axis-aligned trajectory through the voxel P is

$\begin{matrix} {\alpha_{P,{\max\; 1}} = {\max\left( {\alpha_{P,{x\; 1}},\alpha_{P,{y\; 1}},\alpha_{P,{z\; 1}}} \right)}} \\ {= {{\alpha\left( {x,y,z} \right)}{\max\left( {{\alpha_{{x - 1},y,z}\alpha_{{x + 1},y,z}},{\alpha_{x,{y - 1},z}\alpha_{x,{y + 1},z}},{\alpha_{x,y,{z - 1}}\alpha_{{x + 1},y,{z + 1}}}} \right)}}} \end{matrix}$ Instead of calculating the transparencies along each of the three axis-aligned trajectories, some embodiments of the invention calculate an estimate for the highest possible transparency. As the following equation suggests,

${\max\left( {{ab},{c\; d},{ef}} \right)}<={\max\limits^{2}\left( {a,b,c,d,e,f} \right)}$ this is possible by using the highest transparency of the six-connected neighbors.

This approach can be generalized to any neighborhood of P. Define W¹ _(P) as the first order neighborhood of P where W¹ _(p) is the 3×3×3 region around P. When W¹ _(P) is taken into account, the highest possible transparency along any path through P and W¹ _(P) is α_(P,eff)1=α_(P)(max α_(Wn))²  (1) α_(P,eff)1 is the first-order effective transparency and β_(P,eff)1 =1−α_(P,eff)1 is the first-order effective opacity associated with P.

This approach can be extended naturally to neighborhoods of arbitrary size. Denoting the thickness of the neighborhood around the voxel as n, the nth order effective opacity can be calculated by β_(P,eff) n=1−α_(P)(max α_(Wn))^(2n)

Table 1 relates several exemplary values for the minimum opacity in an exemplary neighborhood of order n with the corresponding effective opacities. For example, for a minimum opacity value of 0.3 in a third order neighborhood, the corresponding effective opacity is 0.917; this clearly demonstrates that rapid opacity accumulation can be accomplished with relatively low minimum opacity values.

TABLE 1 Effective opacities for orders n = 1 to 4 for several minimum opacity values β_(min) β_(eff 1) β_(eff 2) β_(eff 3) β_(eff 4) 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.271 0.409 0.521 0.612 0.2 0.488 0.672 0.790 0.865 0.3 0.657 0.831 0.917 0.959 0.4 0.784 0.922 0.972 0.989 0.5 0.875 0.968 0.992 0.998 0.6 0.936 0.989 0.998 0.999 0.7 0.973 0.997 0.999 0.999 0.8 0.992 0.999 0.999 0.999 0.9 0.999 0.999 1 1

The concept of effective opacity provides a means for rapidly estimating the minimum opacity. Instead of having to perform extensive calculations to determine the actual opacity for a voxel position in a data set, a relatively simple determination of the minimum opacity in a neighborhood of voxels can be used to determine an estimated effective opacity. If the effective opacity of a voxel exceeds a user-defined threshold, it can be considered an occluding voxel; a large number of adjacent occluding voxels act as an occluder “shield”. The rendering of voxel data sets after extracting occluding shields is discussed in further detail below.

OPERATING ENVIRONMENT

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an operating environment in conjunction with which embodiments of the invention may be practiced. The description of FIG. 1 is intended to provide a brief, general description of suitable computer hardware and a suitable computing environment in conjunction with which the invention may be implemented. Although not required, the invention is described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer, such as a personal computer or a server computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 for rendering volume data. In some embodiments, system 100 includes a computer system 102 that includes a rendering module 106 that is capable of receiving input 3D data 104 and generating voxel data 108. The rendering module 106 processes voxel data 108 to display images on a monitor 110. In one embodiment of the invention, the rendering module is provided with the Vitrea™ 2 software available from Vital Images, Inc.

Computer system 102 may be any general purpose personal computing hardware and software. In one embodiment of the invention, computer system 102 is a personal computer having an Intel Pentium® based CPU running the Microsoft Windows XP® operating system. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, computer system 102 is a Silicon Graphics workstation running the IRIX® operating system. The invention is not limited to any particular computer hardware or operating system.

3D data 104 can be any type of 3D data. In some embodiments of the invention, 3D data 104 comprises medical image data such as that produced by computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), ultrasonography, positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), magnetic source imaging, and other imaging techniques. In alternative embodiments, 3D data 104 can be data generated for a 3D gaming system. The invention is not limited to any particular type of 3D data.

Voxel data 108 is a voxel representation of data 104. In some embodiments of the invention, rendering module 106 uses the methods described below to extract occluders from voxel data 108 to be used in determining regions in the voxel data that will not be visible when displayed on monitor 110.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

FIGS. 2–3 are flowcharts illustrating methods for performing occlusion culling on voxel data according to an embodiment of the invention. The methods to be performed by the operating environment constitutes computer programs made up of computer-executable instructions. Describing the methods by reference to a flowchart enables one skilled in the art to develop such programs including such instructions to carry out the methods on suitable computers (the processor of the computer executing the instructions from computer-readable media). The methods illustrated in FIGS. 2–3 are inclusive of the acts required to be taken by an operating environment executing an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method for rendering a voxel data set. A system executing the method, such as computer system 100, calculates a set of occluder shields in the voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset (block 202). In general, if a transparency value exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the voxel is opaque and can be considered an occluder. Further details regarding calculating occluder shields will be presented below in reference to FIG. 3.

The system then proceeds to apply the occluder shields to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image (block 204). In general, voxel data that is behind an occluding shield does not contribute to the final image.

Lastly, a system executing the method renders the voxel dataset, excluding those regions identified at block 204 that do not contribute to the final image (block 206).

FIG. 3 provides further details regarding a method used in some embodiments for calculating occluder shields in voxel data set. The method begins by dividing the voxel dataset into contextual regions (block 302). In some embodiments of the invention, the contextual regions have a dimension of fifteen voxels along each primary axis. However, the invention is not limited to any particular size for a contextual region. Dividing the voxel data set into contextual regions is desirable because an exhaustive search on all possible occluder shields in the dataset (having arbitrary direction and size) would generally be computationally too expensive.

Next, a system executing the method analyzes each contextual region to determine occluder shields in the contextual region. In some embodiments of the invention, only shields that coincide with a primary axis of a contextual region are considered; resulting in a maximum of x+y+z occluders per contextual region. This is desirable, because it speeds excluder extraction. In further embodiments of the invention, only those shields that span the entire contextual region are considered occluding shields; for example, shields along the x-axis are only considered when all y×z voxels are occluding. In these embodiments, it is desirable that contextual regions be relative small to increase the likelihood of finding shields that entirely fall within opaque regions. In one embodiment contextual regions of size 16³ are used (15 voxels+1 shared border voxel).

Calculation of occluding shields may require access to a significant amount of data. For example, for a contextual region size of 16³, finding 4th order occluders requires analysis of a 24³ subvolume, a more than threefold increase compared to the size of the original contextual region. In some embodiments , the system skips calculation of some higher order occluders; as a significant number of contextual regions fall completely inside (all voxels opaque, x+y+z0-th order occluders) or completely outside (all voxels transparent, no occluders) objects of interests, most of the processing is done in regions that partially intersect with objects of interest.

Thus for each contextual region, the system first generates an opacity map for the contextual region (block 304). This step maps the voxel data corresponding to a x×y×z contextual region onto their transparency values. In some embodiments, this is done using a lookup table. In some embodiments, a 3 dimensional array of size x×y×z holds the voxel transparencies. In some embodiments, the opacity map comprises one byte per voxel and transparencies ranges from 0 (completely opaque) to 255 (completely transparent).

A system executing the method then proceeds to determine if a zero order occluder exist in the contextual region (block 306). To facilitate rapid determination of occluding shields, some embodiments of the invention use three vectors of size x, y, and z that contain the number of opaque voxels at each x, y, and z position; these vectors are initialized with zero. The system then traverses through all transparency values of the contextual region and, using simple comparison against a user-specified threshold, determines whether each voxel is an approximate occluder. In one embodiment, a transparency threshold of 51/255 (0.2) is used for zero order occluders, which corresponds to an opacity threshold of 0.8. For each occluding voxel, the entries of the three vectors corresponding with each of the voxel coordinates are incremented. In some embodiments, during the traversal, a simple test is performed to determine if any voxel that was not totally transparent is encountered.

After completing the traversal through the contextual region, the three arrays contain the total number of occluding voxels at each x, y, and z planes. Comparing these numbers with the number of voxels in each plane determines whether all voxels in each plane are occluding; if this is the case, the corresponding shield is an 0th order occluder. In alternative embodiments, a threshold value number of voxels in the plane can be used to determined if the shield is an occluder. One embodiment of the invention stores the occluders of a contextual region as four integers, one denoting the order of the occluder (which will be zero during this stage) whereas three integers define a bitmask that represents the occluders for each plane (each occluder is represented by a set bit).

In some embodiments, when all voxels in the contextual region are occluding, an x+y+z 0th order occluding shields is obtained and further processing is not required. Furthermore, in some embodiments, processing on a contextual region is stopped when all voxels are completely transparent; in this case, the entire contextual region can be marked as invisible and its contents never have to be processed during a rendering step.

In some embodiments, the system checks to see if a zero order occluder was found. (block 308). If so, the system proceeds to block 312, otherwise the contextual region contains non-transparent voxels and is not completely opaque.

If no zero order occluder was found in the contextual region, the system proceeds to determine higher order occluders (block 310). In some embodiments, the system performs opacity mapping at the borders of the contextual region. As described above, evaluation of higher order occluders requires calculation of the highest transparency values in a neighborhood around each voxel. In some embodiments, in order to determine the local maxima calculations, subsequent calculations are performed on a 3D array of size (x+2N)×(y+2N)×(z+2N) where N is the maximum occlusion order. In some embodiments of the invention, N is three.

Except for the amount of voxel data read and handling of border pixels, this opacity mapping of borders is substantially identical to the step described above regarding 0th order occluders. With contextual regions at the edge of the volume, the border values are initialized with the transparencies at the volume edge. When it is completed, the (x+2N)×(y+2N)×(z+2N) array contains the transparencies of all voxels from the contextual region and a surrounding border of thickness N.

After opacity mapping the border of the contextual region, the system performs multiple passes over the contextual region, starting at order 1 and incrementing the order of each pass by one until the maximum order N is reached. In those embodiments of the invention employing effective transparency calculation, evaluation of equation (1) requires the calculation of the maximum transparency in the 3³ neighborhood. This step represents a simple morphological operation known in the art as 3D greylevel dilation. The 3³ kernel is typically separable which allows for a computationally very efficient implementation that relies on three subsequently applied 1D kernels of size 3. As 1D dilation requires two comparisons for each voxel, 3D dilation can be accomplished in six comparisons per voxel; the 3D dilation of the contextual region processes (x+2(N−1))×(y+2(N−1))×(z+2(N−1)) voxels. Thus as an example, for a maximum occluder order of N=3 and a contextual region of 16³, 3D dilation requires 48K comparisons per iteration, which roughly corresponds to only 12 comparisons per voxel in the contextual region.

In some embodiments, the separable filters use different 3D arrays for source and destination; after each pass, source and destination arrays are switched. The temporary 3D arrays are typically about 10 KBytes each, which is generally small enough to keep all data processing local to the CPU's cache.

Further calculation for higher order occluders is similar to that outlined above for block 306; however some embodiments do not require the detection of fully transparent regions, and additionally, the used transparency threshold may be different. For example, in one embodiment, a transparency threshold of 100/255 (≈0.39) is used for higher order occluders, which corresponds to an opacity threshold of approximately 0.61.

The bitmasks resulting from the occluder calculations are compared to the ones that were found during the previous pass. Two cases are of particular interest:

1. Additional occluders found

When new occluders are found during a pass, the occlusion order of the contextual region is adjusted while the bits representing the new occluders are set.

With additional occluders found, it is not unlikely that another iteration might yield even more occluders; further analysis is therefore desirable. As the local minima from larger neighborhoods can be calculated by re-applying the greylevel dilation outlined previously, another pass through the contextual region is performed providing the maximum occlusion order has not been reached yet.

2. No additional occluders found

Typically, the odds of finding new occluders decreases with each iteration. Thus in some embodiments of the invention, additional iterations at higher orders are not performed unless new occluders are found.

In some embodiments, processing of the contextual region is completed when the maximum number of occluding shields are found, the maximum number of iterations (i.e. the highest order) has been reached, or no new occluding shields were found during a new iteration.

The system then checks to see if any contextual regions remain to be processed (block 312). If so, the method returns to block 304 and processes the next region. The steps defined in blocks 304–312 are applied to each contextual region of the volume. In some embodiments, for each region this results in four integers that represent the highest occluder order and the position of the occluders represented as a simple bitmask.

After all contextual regions have been processed; the bitmasks and maximum occluder order are then used in some embodiments for fusion of the occluding shields (block 314). Fusion of occluders is desirable for at least two reasons. First, fusion results in occluders that are as large as possible. As the amount of volume data that is invisible (and therefore need not be processed) increases with the occluder area, it is desirable to determine large occluders.

Second, fusion results in fewer occluders. The actual occlusion culling step (determining which parts of the volume are occluded by a shield) tends to be computationally expensive. Therefore it is desirable to limit the number of occluders involved in the calculations.

In those embodiments where the occluders of each contextual region are specified by bitmasks, simple logical AND-ing the bitmasks of adjacent regions can determine whether occluders span multiple regions. Any bits that are set after the AND operation represents a fused occluder.

In this step, the method loops over all contextual regions of the volume (in x-y-z fashion). In some embodiments, the following steps are performed for each contextual region and axis:

-   -   1. Using the bitmasks from adjacent regions, the occluder is         extended until the rectangular occluder spans the largest         possible number of contextual regions. This is done in two         phases; first, the occluder is expanded along “left-right” in a         plane formed by the current primary axes, and all possible         candidates are stored in a temporary list. Second, the candidate         occluder rows are expanded along the “top-bottom” direction in         the plane. The system keeps track of the occluder with the         largest area that was encountered. After all candidates have         been evaluated, the largest possible occluder is obtained in         some embodiments. The search algorithm is generally exhaustive,         but reasonably fast. However the invention is not limited to         exhaustive search.     -   2. During the search for the largest occluder, we also determine         the maximum occluder order encountered; this value represents         the order of the fused occluder.     -   3. For each fused occluder, several properties can be stored;         these include its order, its area, its axis, and the 3D         coordinates of the two corners that span the occluder. The         occluder can then be stored and assigned an integer identifier         (ID).     -   4. Each contextual region contains can maintain a list of         occluder IDs; this allows for an arbitrary number of occluders.         As the fused occluder spans multiple regions, the same occluder         ID is added to the occluder ID lists of all contextual regions         that contain the fused occluder.     -   5. In some embodiments, the occluder fusion step is skipped when         the occluder ID list of the contextual region already contains         IDs that were added during processing of other contextual         regions. This speeds up occluder fusion and reduces the number         of occluder IDs stored at each region.

After fusing occluders in each of the primary axes, the system can use the generated occluders to determine which regions of the voxel data are invisible and need not be rendered.

FIGS. 4A and 4B provides a graphical example of the results of the occluder selection and fusion process described above. FIG. 4A is a typical volume rendering for a medical image comprising a thorax data set. FIG. 4B shows the occluders extracted using the above-described systems and methods.

The sections above describe the various software methods in a system that performs occlusion culling in the volume rendering of image data. As those of skill in the art will appreciate, the software can be written in any of a number of programming languages known in the art, including but not limited to C/C++, Java, Visual Basic, Smalltalk, Pascal, Ada and similar programming languages. The invention is not limited to any particular programming language for implementation.

CONCLUSION

Systems and methods for performing occlusion culling for volume rendered images are disclosed. The systems and methods described provide advantages over previous systems by providing improved culling efficiency with low overhead. This efficiency and low overhead makes it possible to render complicated three dimensional images using general purpose personal computers, rather than specialized graphics workstations.

Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any arrangement which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention.

The terminology used in this application is meant to include all of these environments. It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that this invention be limited only by the following claims and equivalents thereof. 

1. A computerized method for rendering a three dimensional image, the method comprising: calculating a set of occluder shields in a voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset, said calculation including: dividing the voxel data into a plurality of contextual regions, each of said contextual regions comprising a plurality of voxels, each of said voxels having a transparency value, and a position value; and for each contextual region performing the tasks of: opacity mapping the contextual region; determining if a zero order occluding shield is present; and if no zero order occluding shield is present, then determining if higher order occluding shields are present; applying the occluder shields to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image; and rendering the voxel dataset, said rendering excluding regions that do not contribute to the final image.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if a zero order occluding shield is present comprises: determining greydata for a border region surrounding the contextual region; calculating transparency values for the contextual region and the border region; and determining if the number of opaque voxels exceeds an occluder threshold.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the zero order occluding shield is aligned with a plane formed by two primary axes.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein a voxel is opaque when the transparency value for the voxel exceeds a transparency threshold.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein determining if a higher order occluding shield is present comprises iterating over a number of orders, at each iteration performing the tasks of: calculating an effective transparency for at least a subset of the voxels in the contextual region and the border region; and using the effective transparency to determine if occluding shields are present in the contextual region.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the higher order occluding shield is aligned with a plane formed by two primary axes.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the effective transparency of a voxel is calculated using at least a subset of neighboring voxels of the voxel, said size of the subset being determined by the order.
 8. The method of claim 5, wherein the effective transparency for a voxel is calculated using an n^(th) order effective opacity value defined according to the formula: β_(P,eff)n=1−α_(P)(max α_(Wn))^(2n); where: β_(P,eff)n comprises the effective opacity of a voxel P n comprises the thickness of the neighborhood W around P, α_(P) comprises the transparency of voxel P, and max α_(Wn) comprises an estimate of the maximum transparency of a voxel in a neighborhood W around P.
 9. The method of claim 5, wherein iteration stops if no new occluding shields are found.
 10. The method of claim 5, wherein iteration stops if the order reaches a maximum order.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the maximum order is
 3. 12. The method of claim 5, wherein iteration stops if the number of occluding shields found exceeds a shield threshold.
 13. The method of claim 5, further comprising performing 3D greylevel dilation of the voxel transparency values.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if a zero order occluding shield is present comprises determining if a zero order occluding shield is present in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 15. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if a higher order occluding shield is present comprises determining if a higher order occluding shield is present in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 16. The method of claim 1, wherein the presence of an occluding shield in a contextual region is indicated by setting a bit in a bitmask, the position of said bit in the bitmask indicating the position of the occluding shield in the contextual region.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the position of the occluding shield is in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 18. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if an occluding shield in a contextual region can be fused with an occluding shield in an adjacent contextual region.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the bitmask of the contextual region is compared with the bitmask of the adjacent contextual region.
 20. The method of claim 18, wherein the adjacent contextual region is left-right adjacent in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 21. The method of claim 18, wherein the adjacent contextual region is top-bottom adjacent in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 22. The method of claim 1, further comprising forming a fused occluder, said fused occluder comprising a plurality of coplanar occluding shields from a plurality of adjacent contextual regions, wherein the fused occluder spans a maximal number of the plurality of contextual regions.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein the coplanar occluding shields are in a plane formed by two primary axes.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein a contextual region is associated with a plurality of fused occluders.
 25. A computerized system, comprising: a processor; a memory; and a rendering module that is operable on the computerized system to: calculate a set of occluder shields in a voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset, said calculation including operations to: divide the voxel data into a plurality of contextual regions, each of said contextual regions comprising a plurality of voxels, each of said voxels having a transparency value, and a position value; and for each contextual region perform the tasks of: opacity map the contextual region; and determine if a zero order occluding shield is present; if no zero order occluding shield is present, then determine if higher order occluding shields are present; apply the occluder shields to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image; and render the voxel dataset, said rendering excluding regions that do not contribute to the final image.
 26. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method for rendering three dimensional images, the method comprising: calculating a set of occluder shields in a voxel dataset using a transparency value associated with each voxel of the dataset, said calculation including: dividing the voxel data into a plurality of contextual regions, each of said contextual regions comprising a plurality of voxels, each of said voxels having a transparency value, and a position value; and for each contextual region performing the tasks of: opacity mapping the contextual region; determining if a zero order occluding shield is present; and if no zero order occluding shield is present, then determining if higher order occluding shields are present; applying the occluder shields to identify regions of the voxel data that do not contribute to the final image; and rendering the voxel dataset, said rendering excluding regions that do not contribute to the final image.
 27. The computer-readable medium of claim 26, wherein determining if a zero order occluding shield is present comprises: determining greydata for a border region surrounding the contextual region; calculating transparency values for the contextual region and the border region; and determining if the number of opaque voxels exceeds an occluder threshold.
 28. The computer-readable medium of claim 26, wherein the zero order occluding shield is aligned with a plane formed by two primary axes.
 29. The computer-readable medium of claim 26, wherein a voxel is opaque when the transparency value for the voxel exceeds a transparency threshold.
 30. The computer-readable medium of claim 26, wherein determining if a higher order occluding shield is present comprises iterating over a number of orders, at each iteration performing the tasks of: calculating an effective transparency for at least a subset of the voxels in the contextual region and the border region; and using the effective transparency to determine if occluding shields are present in the contextual region.
 31. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein the higher order occluding shield is aligned with a plane formed by two primary axes.
 32. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein the effective transparency of a voxel is calculated using at least a subset of neighboring voxels of the voxel, said size of the subset being determined by the order.
 33. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein the effective transparency for a voxel is calculated using an n^(th) order effective opacity value defined according to the formula: β_(P,eff)n=1−α_(P)(max α_(Wn))^(2n); where: β_(P,eff)n comprises the effective opacity of a voxel P n comprises the thickness of the neighborhood W around P, α^(P) comprises the transparency of voxel P, and max α_(Wn) comprises an estimate of the maximum transparency of a voxel in a neighborhood W around P. 